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How can people get away with so much?
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Post by
GeorgeBob
He also invited people to report him, even saying he was "un-bannable". I not only reported him, I waited for a GM to contact me. I even called Blizzard. The guy NEVER was banned. He was in trade, doing the same thing, for more than a week.
This was more than I could just overlook. The interview he gave on the Today show gave his real name. His YouTube channel listed the city where he lived. I called the cops.
I don;t know what the end result was, but I was contacted by an investigator, and was told that he had been arrested, and charged with domestic violence with the video as evidence.
Wow that is intense. I'm glad he hasn't progressed to that level of insanity. You were really brave to do that.
@ cephadex: People have their own nonliteral interpretation of the word 'literal'.
I'm not exactly sure what word I should have used to say that he was always in trade and specify that he WAS IN trade at all times, as in not just exaggerating about how long he would go on his tirades.
Recently in britain,we've had a spate of people being arrested by the police about racist comments that have been made on social networking sites.Making racial slurs is a criminal offence in this country(not sure what laws you have in the states).I wonder how long it will be before someone does report this kind of in-game behaviour to the real authorities and not just to blizzard.
In America a lot of people hide behind freedom of speech. Several times I have seen racist flyers blanketed across my campus. The people who distribute them do not get arrested for racism, but they instead only get in trouble for littering.
The Klu Klux Klan regularly tries to have marches in my city, and have actually been successful in doing this once or twice. I don't know if you remember the news, but there was a town in which they wanted to name a street or something after one of the most violent and racist of the Klan leaders.
You should have seen the things posted on my facebook wall after the president was re elected. If racism/racial slurs were a crime here, those people would never see the light of day again.
Pretty much, as long as they don't follow through with their threats or use racism to fuel violence, no one does anything about it. And even sometimes then, nothing is done because they can't prove it was a racial attack.
That's not to say that if someone famous or a big timer uses a racial slur nothing will happen. Often they are the only people who are punished, and I think they are only targeted because everyone else is in a rush to prove they are not as "racist" as the public figure is. Those types of things are just too large to ignore or look over, so people actually react to it.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Thing is, in the US it's not illegal to make racist comments. You can't discriminate in an employment situation, or refuse to sell to someone, but you can be a jerk. It's covered under free speech. Intentional infliction of emotional distress is actionable civilly, but you can't be arrested for it. Harassment might be actionable, but all the person has to show is that you had a filter you could click to never have to hear what they have to say again, and the case wouldn't be pursued. You can't claim harassment when you haven't taken reasonable actions to avoid the person yourself.
So Blizzard really isn't ignoring any laws in its home country by not pursuing racism- just social conventions. And by offering people a way to block the sender very easily, they're really covering themselves pretty well in terms of protecting their players from abuse while playing. If people are refusing to use the ignore option, then they're allowing themselves to continue to subject to the abuse.
In extreme cases, like that person pursuing them outside of the game and attacking their website, you cross the line into criminal activity. But in the US, there is nothing someone can say in trade chat that breaks criminal law, other than divulging classified information.
Post by
hymer
@ GB: Don't worry about me. The literal meaning of him literally being in trade is physically impossible, so I didn't think you actually meant that. :) But you could have moved 'literally' and said he was 'in trade literally all the time'. Which of course would also have been a nonliteral interpretation of the word 'literal', as the guy also had time to post things on Youtube (and maybe go to the toilet and things like that, but we have no evidence he wasn't sitting in a heap of his own faeces).
Anyway, it's not hugely important. It's just a case of the English language losing a word's specific meaning. Happens all the time, and it's certainly not your fault.
But in the US, there is nothing someone can say in trade chat that breaks criminal law, other than divulging classified information.
I'm thinking threats and libel are against the law too?
Post by
ElhonnaDS
But in the US, there is nothing someone can say in trade chat that breaks criminal law, other than divulging classified information.
I'm thinking threats and libel are against the law too?
You're correct, I apologize. Making threats would be covered criminally. Libel would be handled civilly, I think- they'd be held liable financially for any damages, but there is no criminal penalty.
Post by
331902
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Post by
584547
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Post by
331902
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Post by
lonewarrior
"Broken Windows" A dated but always relevant piece.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/
Mob mentality is another way to coin what goes on in tradechat.
Why ignoring inevitably fails.
These actions if left unchecked propagate even more aggressive behavior.
It's a proven fact in any group species...when authority is missing, adolescence chaos usually takes over.
We've seen it during sport celebrations(soccer comes to mind)
We've seen on college campus , where some event ends up with scenes of rampant student and burning cars.
Heck...even elephants have shown mob mentality. One animal planet episode had park employees puzzled by the deaths of rhinos.
They eventually discovered it was adolescence elephants grouping up together to bully and even kill the rhinos.
The theory...all the authoritative bull elephants had been killed by poachers. They shipped in adult bull elephants to the area. Problem solved.
You allow one persons behavior to go unchecked, eventually it draws more people into such behavior.
Blizz decides they are going to enforce their own standards of conduct.... they show up in tradechat and admonish players...you can bet on it...the problems clears up.
Players see Blizz authority, they will respect it, like it or not. They know they can't win.
But unfortunately a greater social disorder has sway. That money absolves us from social courtesies.
Blizz is making money so why should they care.
Post by
584547
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Post by
dumac
An enviroment without enforced social rules, will lead to chaotic and least favourable trait of humanity. People are designed to the test the limits of that they can do, so it is no wonder what happens in trade. Blizzard sure do have rules but the enforcement is clearly vague at best then it comes to trade chat. Gold Farmer do hurt the server more profane ways, but trade channel going toxic and hostile by a few is not good either. Common sense is to remove the few bad ones so the other is happy and want to be in the game. If removing one paying customer helps 10 paying customer to enjoy and like to hang out in a place it is the wise move, however if that one paying customer brings more people than he offends he is also valueable to the place. It is neither grey or white.
But in blizzard case it would be better to have a firm enforcement in these cases. Creating a tolerant place to chat is neither impossible nor difficult if they really wanted. Most people are followers not leaders, so the core of wow may be rotten but the core is smaller than the apple itself.
Heck...even elephants have shown mob mentality. One animal planet episode had park employees puzzled by the deaths of rhinos.
They eventually discovered it was adolescence elephants grouping up together to bully and even kill the rhinos.
The theory...all the authoritative bull elephants had been killed by poachers. They shipped in adult bull elephants to the area. Problem solved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=print
An article about the elephant trouble. Elephants have a rich social structure in their herd and mourns members who dies. The young elephants grows up damaged from the herd being killed off, gets traumatic memories of humans. This is a big reason why they are attacking human settlements, then the social order is restored they are getting more calmer but that does not mean the wounds goes away from that generation. I think the topic is fascinating due it shows an other social beings life and how they can be affected that human desire for their tusk caused. Thanks for bringing it up as an example in yer list.
Post by
331902
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Post by
GeorgeBob
How do you know the guy is spouting vile stuff? Because you don't have him on "ignore." You're giving the troll an audience, and that sustains him. If you refuse to ignore him, then your complaints seem insincere.
I may be kinda confused about the way report works, but I always thought if you reported someone they were automatically ignored. And then I would log on my alts and come to find that he would still be visible there. I would report him again, thinking, hey must have been a bug. And then on my third alt I would stumble upon more of his bad mouthing. Report, and the cycle continues every time I log onto a character.
I can choose to ignore him, but the problem does not go away, and I care about the game, the game environment, and the community.
You allow one persons behavior to go unchecked, eventually it draws more people into such behavior
.
Blizz decides they are going to enforce their own standards of conduct.... they show up in tradechat and admonish players...you can bet on it...the problems clears up.
Players see Blizz authority, they will respect it, like it or not. They know they can't win.
You are exactly right. I recall one day on my paladin, after reporting him, chatting with some of the people he targeted in trade. I think it was the time he started terrorizing the guy who was going to counseling. I really can't stand when people make light of something so serious, especially when they say some of the hideous things that guy was saying.
I told them that the jerk was displaying attention seeking behavior and that they should just ignore him and leave it be so that his victim could get some peace. (The more they tried to defend the poor guy, the more he was harassed and made fun of). I told them that eventually if he didn't get his kicks out of them replying back and if people just left him in his own world, he would stop.
Quickly someone else in his guild jumps into trade and tries to defend him, telling people how much of an idiotic thing it would be to just ignore him because that's not how the real world works, and on and on and on. He then proceeded to spam some of the same thing's his buddy was saying in trade, I guess to make sure the hate messages got across .
Post by
193475
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Post by
Azrile
Not trying to make excuses for the bad guy... but who in the world would talk about ´going to counseling´ in general chat? I mean, seriously, even talking about stuff like that in guildchat is stupid. Are people so hard up for social contact that they use /2 to find friends? Do people create a level 1 orc, run to a city and ask for medical advice?
Post by
restopresto
I'd just like to add one thing to this. There are numerous options for dealing with this. YOU could request to be assigned to another server, start a server wide bomb campaign where you send in game messages to him asking him, i assume him, to stop. Or you can simply live with this and ignore the person. I think the real reason why WoW isn't doing anything about it is that WoW isn't a prostate nanny and shouldn't be seen as the answer to this (one of many life's problems). If your account and his were permanently banned, it would mean nothing in the broader economic implications of this multi-million dollar franchise's life cycle. You see, in life, you can't always expect someone to make things just the way YOU want them to be. You have to tolerate those who are so different than you in every way or take it upon yourself to confront the problem. I am by in no way advocating violence rather i'm suggesting you take the time to make sense of it to yourself. Try to keep in perspective that this person is most likely a mental midget and has some deeper issues that he lives out via avatar in WoW. Don't use this as a one up on this poor idiot, just understand that this person is most likely mentally inferior to the average human and should be treated as such and more than likely deserves our pity. This is not because of some disability but rather because of choice; his choice to be this way. And in this, is the greatest tragedy; they choose to be stupid. WoW didn't make this person and WoW shouldn't be the one to "fix" him. Its up to you to wear the ole big boy pants, get a hold of your emotions, and move on. Hope this helps.
Post by
517094
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Post by
GeorgeBob
I'd just like to add one thing to this. There are numerous options for dealing with this. YOU could request to be assigned to another server, start a server wide bomb campaign where you send in game messages to him asking him, i assume him, to stop. Or you can simply live with this and ignore the person. I think the real reason why WoW isn't doing anything about it is that WoW isn't a prostate nanny and shouldn't be seen as the answer to this (one of many life's problems). If your account and his were permanently banned, it would mean nothing in the broader economic implications of this multi-million dollar franchise's life cycle. You see, in life, you can't always expect someone to make things just the way YOU want them to be. You have to tolerate those who are so different than you in every way or take it upon yourself to confront the problem. I am by in no way advocating violence rather i'm suggesting you take the time to make sense of it to yourself. Try to keep in perspective that this person is most likely a mental midget and has some deeper issues that he lives out via avatar in WoW. Don't use this as a one up on this poor idiot, just understand that this person is most likely mentally inferior to the average human and should be treated as such and more than likely deserves our pity. This is not because of some disability but rather because of choice; his choice to be this way. And in this, is the greatest tragedy; they choose to be stupid. WoW didn't make this person and WoW shouldn't be the one to "fix" him. Its up to you to wear the ole big boy pants, get a hold of your emotions, and move on. Hope this helps.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you on a lot of this. I do believe that it is blizzard's obligation to keep its player base free of this type of harassment. If it were not, they would not have any rules against it at all. In fact, I was looking through blizzard's forum, and there have been numerous recent threads detailing similar behavior.
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/harassment-policy
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7319952349?page=1
I don't think I would ever spam someones inbox, as that would be doing the same thing he is. And I understand that my subscription is just a drop in the bucket, but one bad apple can definitely mess up the bunch. It is not as if he is in a bubble and is not affecting anyone outside himself. How many players have to read his garbage?
As for "fixing" him... I never said I wanted to get him help or try to understand his inner workings. I only want to see that blizzard will not stand for this type of behavior. I am not being harassed, but come the day I am, I would like to know that people could not just get away with it. And the idea of having to switch to another server because of one person is completely illogical. And yes, I suppose I do have some emotion towards the situation, as I am tired of him and his mess.
Post by
Izichial
Wouldn't you just once like to see?
: Trollol: Yeah like Bliz do anything
: Mod#12: Actually..
: Player Trollol has been removed from the game for a duration of 72 Hours, Reason: Asshattery.
That sends one hell of a strong message.
It's working in other games at least. I was playing Planetside 2 a few days ago when we had a global announcement (on the server) that they had banned a number of "cheating scumbags" playing there (they actually used those exact words). This was in the middle of a battle for a large base and people on both sides paused to cheer in yell. Several of the big moba titles also have a system where after you've reported a largeish number of players (to prevent easy identification) you may get a message that action was taken against someone you reported.
Blizzard has pretty much painted themselves into a corner with their lax/inconsistent application of policy in regards to player behaviour, their counterweight lead anchored sticking to policy of never saying anything about anything (particularly anyone) and to some extent also how inconsistently reports are handled between different GMs. Perhaps this is wrong; the plural of anecdote might not be data but with nothing to gainsay them these beliefs have been rather firmly established in the community by now.
Most people just don't have a lot of faith in Blizzard to handle these sorts of issues well (if at all) and CMs' continued insistence that they do just rings insincere because they're showing anything that would restore that faith. This hurts enforcement all on it's own since Blizzard claims they rely on reports in these cases, which people won't make if they don't believe it'll have any effect.
Just to clarify I'm mainly talking about perceptions here. If it was widely believed that reports had consequences whenever it was warranted the flip side of that is that people are less likely to engage in behaviour that is actionable because they'd be assuming there was a large chance that they'd both be reported and that something would come of it.
Post by
584547
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Post by
331902
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